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It looks a handy little rifle.
You are right, that's why I use this rifle more than any other for our culling hunts. I took the photo not to brag about the kill, but as part of an answer to a question from another party: Did Mannlicher-Schoenauers with carbine-length barrels but half-stocked ever exist as a factory option? Obviously, yes! To explain why I used this rifle on such a tiny roe, I have to tell about our kind of culling hunt. As a forester I work and live in slightly hilly country, stocked predominantly with hardwood forests of mixed age. We don't use the classic "driven boar hunt" any more, in which a small area of forest is surrounded by a closely spaced line of guns, a line of beaters setting the game to flight through the gunline. This was the European domain of the double rifle, but usually leads to a lot of wounded or miserably shot game. Instead, we place the hunters in strategic stands distributed over a larger forest area, if possible out of the "danger zone" of each other. Then a few beaters and a some dogs bred and trained for the job disturb the whole area to get all kinds of game moving, hoping it will try to pass one or more of the guns. As beaters and dogs are few and far apart, game will often be moving relatively slow or even pausing in sight of a hunter, allowing for more accurate shooting. Now, this type of hunting asks different tasks from the rifle used, as game may vary vastly in size, range and movement. First, the rifle has to be powerful enough for the heaviest task it may be presented, IE a non-trophy red deer at close to 200m, or a rear end raking shot at a big boar already wounded by another hunter. The next moment it has to be accurate enough to hit a roe deer at over 100m, presenting only the 3" wide neck, or the head of a fox at the same range. Then it has to be lively enough to shoot at a running boar passing at 30 paces, or, when "cleaning up" afterwards, stop an enraged boar in thick brush at 5 paces. You never know which task comes next, and there is no time to change more specialized rifles. This is not mere theory, but all these jobs were done for me by this M-Sch 1910.
A lot like Scandinavian driven game hunting One dog and one hunter moving animals hopefully towards prepositioned hunters at stands.
Sounds like a good method. I have always worried if ever doing fast driven hunting, to identify and shoot game well running at fast speed. Much better of they are walking, or stopped.
Great thread from 2010.
I've always wondered about the effect on the meat of running vs standing game. It might be just one of those stories, but I grew up hearing that an animal that was agitated and exerting itself when it expired produced tougher meat than if it was relaxed. Doesn't really matter if it's being ground into sausages, but for steaks....
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